Corrupted Intentions
by Wesa Ada
Summary: An XMenBuffy crossover.  Nightcrawler goes to investigate the mysterious deaths in Sunnydale, California.  However, he soon discovers that Sunnydale does not need his protection, but rather protection FROM him.
1. Stakeout

Note to reader: Neither Xmen nor Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to me, as I'm sure you know. This story takes place after the Draco storyline and in season 7 of Buffy. Sorry that the quality kind of deteriorates as it goes along, I tend to have attention issues...heh. Please, read and review and let me know if you see any plot holes or grammar/spelling errors. :D This story brought to you via much nagging from my internet wife, BldyMalice. So most credit goes to her for keeping me on task. xD

**Chapter 1**: Stakeout

It was a beautiful day in Sunnydale, California. The sun shone down upon the masses of students making their weekend exodus from Sunnydale high, birds sang cheerfully above the din of teenage chatter and the general atmosphere was one of joy and freedom. One young man however, sat apart from the masses and their infectious cheer, surveying the crowd like a cat waiting to pounce.

The man looked to be in his mid-twenties, yet something about his light brown eyes seemed to suggest a maturity far beyond his years. He absent mindedly brushed away a stray lock of his wavy black hair, his fingers strangely stiff as they completed the motion. He dressed much like the other students, a black jacket over a white t-shirt, loose blue jeans and white tennis shoes; yet something about him seemed to stick out like a sore thumb, if the curious glances of the happily departing students were anything to go by.

He shifted uncomfortably on the stone bench and grimaced. This stakeout had been a terrible idea. _What had I been expecting to find here, anyway?_ He asked himself, resting his head on his fist as he watched. _Some big, evil demon lurking in the shadows, ready to prey upon the unsuspecting students currently milling about the schoolyard? _He watched a group of students laugh at some personal joke and slap each other on the back. Another group of students was currently engaged in a game of hacky-sack, while a nearby couple watched from beneath the shade of a tree. _Let's face it, Kurt. This is Sunnydale, a perfectly normal California small-town. All your hunches and suppositions have come to nothing. The only demonic thing around is you._

Kurt dropped his eyes from the crowd to look at his own body instead, feeling strangely self-concious in his body as long as the image-inducer was at work. He let loose a small, mirthless laugh. _Ja, it's my body alright. They just can't see it._ He lifted his head from its resting place on his arm and sat up straight once again. He rubbed his hands together, feeling the softness of his short blue fur and the three fingers of his true hands, hidden beneath the illusion of a perfectly normal human boy. He shifted his weight again, trying unsuccessfully to take the weight off of his long, spaded tail which was currently hidden both by the cloth of his baggy jeans and the image inducer that he carried in his pocket. _I wonder if I will ever live to see a day when I can come out in public as my true self and not attract unwanted attention? _

Kurt sighed and got up. The campus was almost completely empty now and he figured that he should also be heading home._ What a waste of time._ Kurt grumbled to himself, before stopping that line of thought._ You're brooding again, Kurt. That's not going to help anyone and you know it. _He forced himself to smile and took a deep breath. _At least it means that I won't have to fight anything! The others are sure to get a laugh out of this. Me and my superstitions._

Still, as Kurt walked quietly down the sidewalk towards his temporary home, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something very wrong about this place and he had simply failed to see it.

--------

"He's doing it again." The teenager who had spoken narrowed her gray-blue eyes at the man sitting in front of the school. "Watching." She flicked her shoulder-length chestnut brown hair and crossed her arms, creating a slight jingle from her golden bangles as they moved. She wore a dark maroon halter top patterned with golden flowers, hip hugger blue jeans and a pair of black leather shoes, all of which accented her lanky frame.

The blonde woman standing beside her shaded her blue eyes and looked around for the man the teenager had indicated. She soon spotted him, sitting on a bench near the school's interest. He stared intently at the students that passed, with a look on his face that she had seen many times before; on edge and ready to fight. "He's definitely up to something." She muttered, biting her bottom lip. She adjusted her jean jacket, briefly wondering whether her outfit would look better with the jacket closed, or exposing the bright red tank top underneath. She opted to unbutton it and looked again at the stranger. "He's leaving." She remarked casually, glancing at the teen as she did so.

"We gonna follow, Buffy?" She asked, a slight smile pulling at her mouth.

"What else is a Slayer to do?" Buffy replied and, after pausing to brush some non-existent dust from her dark green pants, set off to discretely follow the strange man. After a few moments of uninterrupted tailing, their prey suddenly turned and looked around as if sensing they were following. Buffy quickly pretended to be adjusting her ponytail, watching her reflection in the storefront window and the teenager with her got suddenly interested in the shoes the store was displaying.

"What do you think of this pair, Buffy?" she asked in a calm, casual voice as if they had been in the middle of a conversation.

"Oh, I don't know Dawn." Buffy replied, turning to peer at the pair of shoes that Dawn had indicated. "Those heels seem a little too high…" she trailed off as the guy continued on his way and continued her pursuit.

-------

Kurt walked quietly towards the hotel that he had been staying at, wondering once again why he had bothered to come here. It wasn't as if the deaths were all connected to a single murderer. There were many different types of strange deaths here; very few seemed to fit the same profile. And the town itself seemed to be in denial about anything strange at all going on. To be perfectly honest, there was very little reason for Kurt to have decided to come and investigate. Maybe Logan was right. Maybe I really did just want to get away from the others for a little while…Convinced myself that there was something bad going on here that I could deal with on my own.

Kurt shook his head. No, something had drawn him here, he was sure of it. Even if it wasn't the killings, something was strange about this town, a dark and sinister force in stark contrast to its cheerful name. Something about that school called to him, whispered to him of the dark secrets of the occult that drew him in further every day. There was a corruption there, he could feel it in the depths of his soul, even if his 5 senses of the tactile world denied it. He could sense it, but he could not see it, and it drove him insane. It was as if someone was following his every move, making certain that he would never discover the truth...

As a feeling of paranoia spread throughout his mind, Kurt spun around and looked nervously down the street. He shook his head, smiling at the absurdity of his thoughts. No malevolent being stalked the streets behind him, only two young women window shopping and an older couple walking down the street. _I'm being stupid. _He told himself as he turned around, shaking his head. _To think that there is something evil here is absurd!_ He smiled to himself; he was almost to the hotel. Soon he would call up the Xmen to have one of them come pick him up and they would have a good laugh over his paranoia.

He felt a sense of comfort wash over him as he approached the hotel's doors and stepped inside. _At last I can go home. _ He waved a cheery hello to the receptionist as he walked past, eager to reach the privacy of his room where he could finally shed his false appearance. _I'll feel more like myself once I'm looking like myself again._ He assured himself as he scanned the numbers above the doors. He vaguely noted hearing the receptionist arguing with someone, but he was concentrating too much on the task at hand to pay attention. "Ah!" he exclaimed happily as he spotted his room, voice heavy with a german accent. "There it is. Room 23!"

He fumbled with the door for a moment, grimacing as he tried to grip the small silver key with his thick and awkward fingers. _They really ought to make those keys bigger._ He complained to himself silently as he let himself into his room. _Even if they aren't meant for three-fingered hands like mine._

As soon as Kurt stepped into his room a sense of relief and comfort washed over him. He immediately pulled out his image-inducer, flicking it off with relish. It was only when a blood-curdling scream rang across his room that a horror-struck Kurt realized that he had left the door open behind him.

-------

"And just where are _you_ going, ma'am?"

Buffy flinched at the sound of the receptionist's voice. She turned around, flashing what she hoped was a convincing smile at the girl. "Ah, hi! Well, you see, we think that guy is a friend of ours that we haven't seen in a while and-" She broke off as she saw the receptionist's face darken with suspicion. "And uh...and..."

Dawn rolled her eyes and grabbed Buffy's arm, pulling her down the hallway despite the loud protests of the woman behind the desk. "We don't have time for that!" she reminded Buffy, who made a face.

They ducked behind a janitor's cart as their quarry slowed, obviously catching sight of his room. "Ah! There it is. Room 23!" he exclaimed happily, his voice thick with an accent. The two girls exchanged looks of vague surprise.

Dawn grinned. "A German? How politically incorrect!" Buffy quickly shushed her, though she was smiling as well. As soon as they heard the door open, the two broke cover and crept silently towards the door. To their surprise, he had left it wide open, allowing them a full view into his room, startling a shriek out of Dawn.

For standing in the middle of the room, looking just as horrified as her was a fuzzy blue creature, with deformed hands and a long spaded tail that could only be described as a demon.


	2. Stake Out

Comment to the reader: Hello again! For the record, I've been super busy lately – thus the extremely slow updating rate. Also the fact that I've gotten no comments on this, aside from Mali's. Anyone out there? Please? I love comments! I thrive on them. Really, just leaving any comment on it at all – even a totally negative one – brightens my day. It means that someone is actually reading this drivel, and is interested enough to let me know how they feel.

Oh, and I don't own the either the X-Men or Buffy universes. They belong to Marvel and Joss Whedon respectively.

Chapter 2: True Blue Hero

Kurt stiffened, the scream bringing up old fears and memories that he had tried to shove into the back of his mind for good. _A dirty cage, people gaping at him in horror as he lay in a drug-induced daze; the red glare of fire from torches, the blood thirsty faces of the crowd...Humans! Hateful humans! What had he done to deserve this_? _Why had God allowed him to suffer through this?_ Kurt gritted his teeth as an anger long dead and cold flared up once more. It roared with a fury and strength that it had never had before, even in his darkest moments. _It was the humans that did that to me! How could I stand to fight for their cause? _The overpowering anger drove every thought from his mind except for revenge, pain, fear...

"Get AWAY from me, human!" he snarled, spinning around to face the pair that stood in his doorway; fangs bared, tail lashing. Despite their utterly normal and harmless appearance, something in him refused to believe his common sense, and was screaming at him t fight. He saw in the two women everything that had hurt him in his life, associating every hurt and pain that trying to live in a human's world had inflicted on him with the totally innocent pair in front of him. _What are you doing, you idiot?_ _Cut it out!_ The logical portion of his brain screamed back. Kurt fought against the strange anger, but found that somehow he could not shove it away. And it became harder to resist.

"Um, well you see, that's the misunderstanding here. Technically, I'm more than human." Buffy quipped, pulling a wooden stake, her weapon of choice, from out of her purse. "I'm the Slayer!" she yelled, lunging forward to attack the demon before her, only to stumble off-balance as her stake connected with nothing but a cloud of sulfurous smoke. She coughed and squinted her now burning eyes, scanning the room for the demon's presence. "Nice parlor trick." She commented conversationally, unconsciously moving closer to her little sister for protection. "Learn it from the circus?"

"As a matter of fact, I did." Hissed a voice from the ceiling. Buffy barely had time to register the direction of his voice before her stake was snatched from her grip by a long, dexterous tail. She looked up and saw that – much to her horror – the demon's grinning face was a mere arm's length away from her. Grinning wickedly, he transfered the stake from tail to hand with disconcerting ease. She was just considering her option of attack when the demon suddenly and without warning fell from the ceiling into a confused heap upon the floor.

With a supreme force of will, Kurt shoved the irrational anger and hatred away, fighting to regain his self-control. As he came back to himself, he felt a jolt of vertigo as he was suddenly crashing downwards, when he had been standing upright not a moment before. He felt a white-hot flash of pain as something pierced his skin, bringing him fully to his senses. "Was?" He blinked, rolling onto his back and looking down at the wooden stake that now protruded from his upper leg. "Oh..." He looked at the stake wonderingly. _How did that get there? _

"Well..." Buffy began, feeling more than a little confused about where she currently stood with the demon. He certainly didn't _look_ hostile anymore. "That's what you get for playing with other people's things."

Kurt jerked in surprise, looking up at the blonde woman who stood over him. _Where had she come from? _He wondered idly. It was when he realized that she was standing in a defensive pose, fists raised, that he put two and two together. He felt the blood drain from his face, and a sick kind of dread fill him as the memory of that scream and the terrible anger he had felt returned to him._ So much could have happened between then and now. _

Buffy and the young teenager watched the play of emotions flickering across the demonic-looking man's face with a kind of morbid curiosity, "Should we, like, help him or something?" the teen whispered in Buffy's ear.

Buffy shook her head. "I'm not sure, Dawn. He could be faking or something...Wouldn't be the first time a demon tried to pull that one over me." She murmured back, but her voice held no conviction. The man – _When did I start thinking of him as a man and not a demon? _Buffy wondered – was obviously in pain and very confused. All of her heroine instincts were urging her to go to his aid, while all of her Slayer instincts warned her of treachery and told her to stay back.

"E-es tut mir leid...Was...?" he began, before he shook his head, vaguely remembering that this was the wrong language to be speaking in. His head felt like someone had hit him with a block of cement, and the pain in his leg was not helping him to concentrate either. "I'm sorry." he began again, switching over to English. "What..did I...? Are you...?" He struggled to find the words as he forced himself into a sitting position, grimacing at the pain it caused him.

At his confused inquiry, Buffy felt her heroine instincts take over, telling her cautious Slayer instincts just where they could shove their advice. "How deep is it?" she asked the man, kneeling down to look at the wound in question.

"Its not too deep, I think." Gritting his teeth, Kurt reached down and tugged on the stake, to no effect other than a lance of pain and an increase in bleeding. "Or...maybe I'm wrong."

"Hm. But maybe removing it isn't the best idea in the world right now." Buffy remarked, eyeing the blood that was beginning to saturate the hotel room carpet. "Should probably wait until we can get you to a hospital." She continued, earning a wince from Kurt.

"I'm fine." He said a little too quickly, earning himself a strange look from Buffy. "Really." He assured her. "I've been through much worse. Besides, over the years, I have come to realize that a hospital really isn't any place for me to be sick. The response is usually one of a fire and pitchfork variety. Not exactly a healing environment."

"Err, right." Buffy stuttered, blushing a bit at her idiocity. "Battlefield medical care it is."

"Buffy the Battle Medic has a certain ring to it, for sure." Kurt jumped again at the sound of yet another unfamiliar voice and turned to his right to see Dawn grinning down at him.

_Where did_ she_ come from?_ Kurt wondered, more than a little alarmed at his inability to detect her presence, despite the raw power that she seemed to radiate. _I should have sensed her long before I heard her speak, especially with that amount of power! _

"What?" Dawn demanded in an offended tone, glaring at the demon man. "Never seen a teenage girl before?"

"Not one with as much raw power as you seem to have!" Kurt sputtered, still off-balance from his failure to notice her before.

"Oh that." Buffy rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah, she really a giant ball of energy in human form that can open a portal to a hell dimension. How'd you know?"

Kurt gaped at her in silence. "Was?" he managed at last, looking at Dawn in astonishment. Dawn shrugged.

"S'true." She told him, matter-of-factly.

Kurt shook his head. "Ach, and I thought _I _had a messed up life. But apparently, there are stranger lives than that of an X-man."

"You're an X-man?!" Dawn gasped, her face lighting up in excitement. "Oh my God, I've seen you on TV! You're the Nightcreeper or something, right?"

Kurt winced. "Nightcrawler." he corrected automatically.

"But..wouldn't that make you a mutant?" Buffy asked him incredulously.

"Ja.,,," Kurt groaned, knowing where this conversation was heading.

"Not a demon?" Buffy asked, just to clarify.

"JA!" Kurt glared at her. "Listen, can we talk about something else? Or maybe focus on the fact that I'm kind of bleeding right now?"

"Uhh, right." Buffy mumbled, turning her attention back to Kurt's leg. "So first we should...do...something?" She smiled uncertainly at him.

"I'm going to bleed to death from a wooden stake, aren't I?" Kurt groaned, covering his face with his hands. "How embarrassing."

"Doesn't Giles know about this kind of thing?" Dawn asked Buffy. "Isn't that part of the whole Watcher deal? Medical care?"

"Oh right!" Buffy grinned at her sister, but her face quickly fell. "Not that we have any way of getting a hold of him right now. I left my cellphone in my car at the high school..." She looked hopefully at Dawn, who shook her head. "Well, that idea is rather lacking in usefulness then."

"Here, use mine." Kurt offered, pulling a small black phone emblazoned with an X from his jacket pocket. "Please hurry, I'm starting to feel a bit...woozy." _Woozy in an understatement..._ he thought to himself as he rested his head on his good knee. _I want to lie down. _

Dawn quickly grabbed the cellphone before her sister could reach it, and happily examined the fancy device. "Neeeeat!" She said appreciatively as she began to dial.

Kurt grinned at her. "Yes, well, being an X-man _does _have its perks at times, I'll admit." Dawn grinned back at him as she walked into the bathroom with the phone, already chatting with whomever she had called. "She reminds me of a friend of mine. A very nice young girl." Kurt said conversationally, breaking the short silence that had formed between them.

Buffy smiled, feeling oddly proud of her little sister. "Yeah, I could do worse."

Kurt nodded, and lay his head down on his knee again. "How long do you think it will take them to get here?" he asked her quietly, looking at the steady stream of blood flowing down his leg and staining the white carpet. "Because I'm not sure how much longer I can stay awake." He closed his eyes and concentrated on blocking out the pain and staying awake.

Something in the tone of his voice set off warning bells in Buffy's mind, and she turned to look at him with concern. "Nightcrawler?" She reached out to gently shake him by the shoulder, and Kurt opened his eyes and looked at her blearily. "Hey. Hang in there." She commanded him. "Giles will be here -"

The sound of the door being kicked in quite suddenly interrupted Buffy's sentence. A panicked looking middle-aged man with tousled brown hair and glasses burst into the room, looking around frantically until his blue eyes fell upon the pair sitting together in the corner of the room. He hurried over to them, and wasted no time in kneeling before them, quickly opening the large black suitcase he had brought with him.

"Soon." Buffy finished. "Well, that was quicker than I expected, Giles."

"Yes, well, I happened to be in the neighborhood." Giles explained brusquely, and examined Kurt's leg with a practiced eye. "Quite a nasty wound, but I'm sure I'll have you fixed up in no time." He began to pull several bottles of a shining gold liquid from the case and set it beside him. "Though I must admit, my knowledge of the Neyaphem demon-kin is rather limited. You're not even supposed to exist in this dimension after all."

"You won't have to worry about that at least." Buffy assured him. "Sorry Giles, this one's a mutant. Not a demon."

"Um...actually..." Kurt began and the others turned to look at him. He lowered his head and avoided their gaze, mumbling something they quite couldn't get.

"What was that?" Buffy asked him, wondering about the sudden change in attitude.

"I said he's right. I'm half-Neyaphem...My father was Azazel." Kurt lowered his head and hunched his shoulders, steeling himself for a deathblow from the Slayer that never came. After a pause, He risked a glance at her.

"What?" She demanded, rasing an eyebrow. "You think just because I know you're a half-demon now I'll kill you? You're acting like a kicked puppy."

"Aren't you the Slayer?" he asked her, hesitantly.

"Well, last time I checked I was, but I might have to get back to you on that." Buffy rolled her eyes at him.

"The one girl in all the world who fights against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness?" he questioned again, trying to understand.

"Yeeeaah. The forces of_ darkness_." Buffy reminded him. "Emphasis on the darkness. Not all demons are bad, you know. I've dated a few actually."

"Really?" Kurt gaped at her in surprise.

"Darn skippy!" Buffy affirmed, and laughed as Kurt breathed a sigh of relief.

"I suppose I am just a little too used to people trying to kill me these days." Kurt admitted with a weak smile and a worried glance to his leg.

Giles cleared his throat, trying to regain the two's wandering attentions. "Yes, that's very good and all, But, Buffy...the stake will have to come out." He gave the Slayer a significant look, and Buffy gave Kurt an apologetic look of her own.

"This is going to hurt a bit..." she warned him.

And then it was Kurt's turn to roll his eyes. "You're kidding, I thought it would be painless!" He exclaimed, his voice laden with sarcasm.

Buffy laughed and wrapped her hands around the stake. "On the count of three." She told him.

Kurt nodded and closed his eyes, bracing himself.

"One."

_How strange, to begin the day with a stakeout, _He thought.

"Two."

_And to end it, getting a stake out. _

"THREE!"

Kurt howled in pain as Buffy yanked hard on the stake, pulling it quickly and smoothly out of his leg. The pain overwhelmed him, and it was only a few seconds later that he gave up fighting to stay conscious and let the warm blackness encompass him.


End file.
